Skinny Love
by Mystic25
Summary: She is barely 17, working up the courage to tell her best friend something that she fears herself. H/Hr DH P1 Fic. RATED M for content.
1. Chapter 1

"Skinny Love"

Summary: She is barely 17, working up the courage to tell her best friend something that she fears herself. H/Hr

Mystic25

Rating: M for imagery, mature situations.

A/N: This does not necessarily tie into any fic that I wrote previously, but it does follow a vein that I feel relates Harry to Hermione during their quest in Deathly Hallows.

A/N #2: This story was given an M rating for certain "hot button" mature themes. For the sake of not giving away the main theme of the story I will not say exactly what that is, only that this is your warning of such content, and if you wish to not read something of this nature, this is your chance to leave. Thank You.

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 **xxxxXxxx**

" _Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die."_

~Herbert Hoover

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Her stomach rolled like the ship in a glass bottle dropped by a reckless hand. She huddled against the rough back of an old Adler tree, curling herself as close to the fire in front of her as she could without danger of setting herself alight. Her stomach was tight with spasms that have not relented in days and have denied her any sustenance except water that it even rebelled against when she ingested too much.

She leaned over the fire and out a stringy clear glob into the flames, hearing the fire eat it up with a sizzle. A tin cup of melted snow was clutched between her gloved hands that she has snipped the fingers off of to allow for better dexterity in using her wand. But, it was something that she now regretted doing because she could no longer feel her fingers. And all the spells that could possibly have helped her produce a new pair of gloves or at least fix her old pair have eluded her under the heavy cloak of her nausea.

She used a mouthful of water from the cup to rinse her mouth out, letting half of the water drip out before allowing herself just the tiniest of swallows, praying that it stayed there. Rita Skeeter's biography of Dumbledore is opened in her lap to a page that she hasn't looked at for the last ten minutes. She wiped at her mouth with the washed out stripped wool of her glove and glanced back down at the pages, wiping the lightness of snowflakes off the words before they melted to them.

A black and white photograph of a young Dumbledore and Grindewald stared up at her from a hallway of bricks. Dumbledore's hand rested lightly on Grindelwald's shoulder, his fingers gripped to the cloak of the other man. Both are smiling in a manner that seemed privy to only them. Dumbledore was young in the photograph, she suspected in his late 20's, hair the color of roasted chestnuts, his face unlined, his eyes bright. A snowflakes wafted down from the tree branch above her head and fell on Dumbledore's expression, blurring it out. She wiped it away with her thumb.

The sound of footsteps in the falling snow raised her head up. The sky was dark with an inky night that has trapped itself between the trees, the orange of the flickering flames casted only a few feet of light around the small clearing buried under packed ice. The trunks of the trees past the fire's light stand blacker than the night, the scuttling sounds of creatures moving down them.

The footsteps drew closer, crunching the snow somewhere in those trees.

She lowered the book from her lap, reaching for her wand with slow, careful movements, using the back of the tree she was leant up against to pull herself up into a standing position in fur lined boots. She stepped forward very, very slowly holding her breath. She lit the tip of her wand, but closed the brightness up inside her hand, walking until she stood at the edge of the protection charm she had cast the night before.

The fire cracked and split behind her and in the darkness beyond the forest animals that come out to hunt at night call to each other in the trees. First an owl, then a bird out too late. She raised her muffled light, moving it like a trapped firefly into the air, taking long, quiet steps around the enchanted border.

Darkness met the light of her wand for a one foot distance as she walked in as much silence as her weight allowed. The darkness continued for another foot, then three feet, the skeletal outline of dead tree branches outlining the sky like fingers.

She reached the end of the enchantment border boarder her wand alight at eye level, peering at the darkness that peered back at her in return. She moved it in a slow, sweeping motion, turning towards her left.

The pale face of a man emerged from the darkness like a ghost, illuminated in her wand light: A thin face, long rough hair like badly skein yarn in worn plaid pants, and old motorcycle jacket. a Hawthorne wand held below searching eyes. He stared right at her, a hand span away from touching her, eyes fixed to where she stood invisible like he knows something is there that he can't see. He raises his wand, poking into the barrier.

From her end, she dared not breathe, watching the barrier waiver like a stick swirling water in a pond.

She took the slightest step backwards, opening her mouth to whisper the spell to deactivate her light.

An arm wrapped itself around her waist, startling the wand out of her hand and onto the snow. The lit end of the wand shone upon the muddy snow caked leather boot of a Snatcher. She tried to move forward to retrieve the wand, but the arm around her waist tightened and pulled her backwards. Her startled sounds became muffled from a hand that closes over her mouth.

She bucked back with a hard elbow, trying to free herself, kicking the traction marks of her boots into denim clad legs.

" _Hermione-"_ a whispered breath pressed against her ear, a hand turned her head just enough to see the image Harry's face, his glasses reflecting the light of the fire. Harry released her slowly and she turned around and took him in fully, black hair windswept, his black coat hung with pockets of snow that had gotten caught in the crevices.

Hermione's heart rate began to lower from its jack hammering. She turned back around to strangers, watching as the Snatcher kicked a hole in the snow barely an inch where her wand was, like he had felt it when it fell. She turned back around to Harry, putting a finger to her lips. She felt him release her and she crept slowly forward to where her wand lay. She reached out for it with one hand, her fingers closed around the carved designs of the handle. A thick, full bodied, nausea suddenly seized her and she could not turn around it time before it forced vomit up her throat and onto the snow, dropping her to her hands and knees a breath away from the Snatcher's leather boots.

The Snatcher dipped his head down, reaching out with the hand not grasping his wand and swept it down and out right where she was standing.

Harry seized her around the waist again, snatching up her and her wand in one movement. He pulled her backwards half a foot away, whispering " _nox"_ to make Hermione's light go out.

Hermione swallowed a mouthful of vomit from Harry's jarring movement, throwing her hands over her mouth, but even this was futile. Nothing came out; she had eaten so little in two days, and for once she was grateful because it would cause no sound falling on the snow. She lurched forward in dry heaves, keeping her hands tightly where they were, tears streaming out of her eyes and freezing to her face from the pain of dry heaving.

Harry crouched over Hermione, pressing her face against his chest to muffle the sounds of her being sick, looking up over her shoulder where the clearing they were camping in joined into the forest. A second man in ripped jeans stained in oil and grease and an old leather motorcycle jacket walked into the clearing.

The Second Snatcher stood right behind the first. "Wha' is it? Did ye find something?"

The crouched Snatcher held out his finger like he was testing which way the wind blew. "Something-" he stood back up to his full height, not removing his eyes from the campground made invisible in front of him.

Harry kept Hermione pressed tightly against him and followed the Snatcher's figure as he moved slowly around the outer edge of the perimeter.

The Snatcher walked a few steps around the clearing "Come out come out, wherever you are!" He walked back those same few steps and stopped directly in front of them, close enough to reach out and hit with a packed snowball. He closed his eyes and sucked in a deep, audible breath from his nose. "Peonies- out in winter, that's a dead giveaway love," he opened his eyes again and stepped closer to the barrier. "'Chu come out? Too cold to be all alone."

Harry held his breath, he felt Hermione's warm breath slow to almost a halt against his sweater. She pulled away from him enough to peer at both raggedly dressed men with one eye.

"Are you a nutter!?" The second Snatcher grabbed at the first like he had escaped a mental ward. "There's nofin' there!"

The First Snatcher forcefully removed the second's grip on his shoulder. "You best keep your hands off me mate." His voice was calm, but there was a glint of steel in it.

"We've got half a day of forest ground left to cover!" The second argued, pushing the first back with his arm. "You can't be wasting time acting like a batty old washer woman!"

The first snatcher grabbed the second's hand in a grip that audibly crushed the bones together, jerking it around and up against his back.

The second Snatcher gasped audibly in pain.

"The only time wasting I'm doin' is with you!-" The first Snatcher let go of the second's hand and showing him backwards.

The second Snatcher righted his rumpled coat and stepped backwards, glowering at the first, like he wanted to come to blows, but the first removed his gaze and turned it back towards the clearing. Three feet in front of where both men stood lay the large tree trunk of an evergreen tree that had fallen a month ago in a storm, it lay half inside the clearing where Hermione had cast the protection charms and half out of it.

The first Snatcher raised his wand, and shouted: " _Incendio!"_ The wood quickly caught alight, melting the thin flakes of snow that clung to naked dead branches.

"Are you mad?!" The second snatcher shouted watching the flames sped down the branches towards the thick tree trunk. "You trying to burn us alive?!" He removed his wand from his jacket and raised in the air about to cast a weather spell for more snow to bury the fire, but before he could, the first Snatcher grabbed his arm and jerked it back down, watching as the flames moved down the tree.

Harry watched the flames slow as their neared the barrier of enchantments. " _Hermione-"_ Harry watched the orange light as it began to climb upwards like it had been met with an invisible wall.

The First Snatcher cocked his head at the sight, his lips pulling back into a slow smile. "There you are beautiful-"

" _Run!"_ Harry shoved her to the left towards a wooded section of trees inside the barrier. He ran back over the slick slow and inside the tent, throwing aside the canvas flap. He snatched the Horcrux and Hermione's beaded bag, rushing back outside.

Hermione stood on shaky legs "Harry, my bag!" She didn't try to lower her voice, there was no reason too.

She caught the purple beaded bag Harry threw at her a half clumsy grip and began to call out cries of "Accio!" sending everything in the camp ground stuffing itself into her bag in a tornado-like swirl before the first of the Snatchers spells hit the shield barrier in an explosion of green light. The spell instantly rebounded, but the Snatcher went at it again, and again, sending gunfire loud sounds raining over them.

The tent suddenly stopped moving into the cavernous depth of her bag, getting caught halfway on something inside the fabric knocking Hermione breathless onto the hard ground. She felt her hand scrape the packed snow and the warm blood spread over her skin. Several loose items, pots pans, scraps of clothing flew out of the tent and onto the snow as the tent disappeared into the purple fabric. She held tightly to the purple drawstring bag and pushed the tent in with one bare hand, blood marring the canvas.

Harry threw the Horcrux necklace up over his neck, turning as he heard Hermione fall. "Hermione, leave it!" He ran back to her, feet pounding hard against the frozen ground.

"No!" She yelled back over the sound of jinxes being fired from _both_ Snatchers now. Their spells have yet to be strong enough to break the barrier, but they are both relentless, aiming for the burning tree, trying to shatter the charms to release the flames onto them. The strongest urge to leave everything there and run was buried somewhere deep inside of her. But, overpowering the need for escape was the burning logical need to go beyond survival of the moment. If they left their tent, their possessions could be searched, Ron's family could be interrogated and tortured to find them.

She crawled up on her knees, fighting the wave of nausea that strangled her insides and doubled her efforts on the tent, her arm going down almost an elbow deep length into bag. She fiddled with the canvas fabric in the darkness that she cannot see until she felt as something snagged loose under her fingers. The whole of the tent disappears inside the bag with a vacuum like force, scattering pieces of books and cans of food across the snow. She scrambled to her feet and the world tilted sickeningly, but she didn't let go of the purple bag, grasping it tightly, sending rivulets of blood down into the snow from the opened gash.

Harry stopped so quickly in front of her his momentum almost plowed her over. He snatched her free hand and Disapperated them from the clearing with a thick _crack_.

The protection spells severed the moment they leave the clearing. Snatchers stare at the snowy ground trampled with footprints, and littered with camping equipment. The one in the dirty plaid pants walked slowly towards it, a smile spreading like a stain across his face. "I'll see you soon, my lovely."


	2. Chapter 2

**xxxxXxxx**

" _We are only as strong as we are united,_

 _as weak, as we are divided."_

~"Albus Dumbledore" Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

 **xxxxXxxx**

* * *

They emerged by a frozen pond, sending a group of birds flying off the branches of a dormant, sleeping pine trees. A doe gazed at them from a fifty foot distance, ears up in high alert, body tense to spring should it deem them predator.

Hermione released Harry's hand and stumbled back behind one of rough feeling pine trees, dropping to her knees and vomited thin, yellow noxious bile into a white handful of snow.

The doe shot off into the tree line with a thumping of hooves.

"Hermione!-"

Harry called her name just as a streak of red blood slipped from her mouth, splashing the white snow with its redness.

Harry knelt in front of her, his eyes wide at the blood mixed in with the vomit. _"Hermione-"_ his voice was as wide and scared as his eyes. "What?- What do I do?!-"

"My bag!" Hermione says this as she spits a mouthful of blood onto the snow. "There's a green bottle inside, stoppered with red wax-"

The bag is still clutched tightly in her fingers, Harry has to pry them off the fabric and searched inside until he finds the bottle she described, small enough to fit in the palm of his hand.

"Open it!-" Hermione swallowed like she was trying to keep knives from erupting out from her throat.

Harry fumbled with the wax that sealed the bottle shut, the sweat from his fingers sliding over the slick wax. He jammed the tip of his wand into the seal and it broke through, coating the tip of his wand in a sticky, honey colored liquid.

Hermione reached out and took the bottle from him tipping it to her mouth swallowing. She choked a second later when her swallow comes back up in a spew, the bottle dropping from her hands.

Harry grabbed it up from the ground and pressed it to her lips. "Hermione, you have to swallow this-" his mind escaped to a dark cave surrounded by a murky lake, forcing Dumbledore to swallow mouthful after mouthful of the potion that would let them reach the horcrux that he wore. He tips the bottle up "Please! It's going to help-" He doesn't know what kind of potion his was forcing down her throat, he only hoped that it didn't kill her.

He heard another mouthful go down and she spluttered, but swallowed, then one more time before she jerked back from the bottle with a choking gasp for air. Her legs buckled underneath her, and she fell backwards.

"Hermione!-" He grabbed her before she landed on the ground.

Her lips were coated in dots of crimson and the amber stickiness of the potion she had just drunk. "The enchantments, you have to do them-" her voice was shaky and her skin looked deathly pale.

"I will, once I get you sorted first Hermione-" Harry said. "You're very ill."

Hermione shook her head, quickly, watching as Harry removed his wool coat and lay it over her like a blanket. "Harry, no! The enchantments have to be done, or they'll find us!-" her head was becoming increasingly heavy and weighed down and her grip on consciousness was going down with the weight.

"No, Hermione," Harry shook her. "Don't close your eyes, you need to stay awake with me!-" He watched her eyes roll up in her head and close, her weight going limp against him. _"Hermione!-"_

 **xxxxXxxx**

The world was a gray stillness when her eyes opened. She found herself staring up at the canvas flap of the tent that dropped under the weight of the iron lantern glowing with the amber light of a half melted candle.

Her clothes were damp from still melted snow, but her boots weren't on her feet and she felt a clean pair of thick wool socks on them that were too long to be hers. She turned her head, making the camp bed's wooden frame creak.

"Hermione?-" Harry's voice was just to her left and she saw him rise from a folding chair he had been sitting at and drop to his knees beside her. "It's alright- you're alright, you're safe-" his words sounded like he was trying to convince himself of them as well. She felt his hand go into her hair which was in a thick tangled mass of dirt and leaves. He brushed several dirty locks aside, green eyes holding to hers.

She felt like she had swallowed nettles and her mouth lingered with the coppery taste of blood. "Water?-" the one word was a question and a moment later, Harry carefully pulled her head up and was pressing a tin cup to her lips.

She grasped the cup in one hand, pushing herself up to sit up on the cot, taking slow, tentative sips. It was then that she noticed that the hand holding the tin camping cup was wrapped twice in a bandage that leaked a few dots of blood from the material. The water was just shy of being hot, no doubt from Harry melting a pile of snow over the fire, but it tasted clean. She took slow sips, even though her thirst was ravenous to keep herself from being sick again. She drank half the cup this way before handing it over to Harry when he offered to take it.

Harry set the cup down on the canvas floor of the tent, eyes never leaving hers. "Do you feel any better?"

At his question Hermione took stock of herself. She wasn't nauseous anymore, but her stomach hung with a queasy feeling just below the surface, and her muscles felt like they had been pulled apart. "Not really."

"Do you think you could eat anything?" Harry asked. "I salvaged enough ingredients for a half decent vegetable stew, it's outside on the fire." He pointed to the closed flap on the tent to indicate what was behind it.

The queasiness in Hermione's stomach crept up a notch at the mention of the stew. "I don't really think I could keep anything down-"

"You have to have _something_ -" Harry insisted. "You've barely eaten anything in weeks-"

"Harry please, stop mentioning food," Hermione set a hand to her stomach to try to dispel the queasiness.

Harry wasn't blind to her gesture. Guilt crept into his gaze. "Sorry."

A burst of a laugh escaped Hermione's mouth, one borne from sickness and exhaustion. "I actually wish I could have some tea-" She said it like something she had long given up on.

"You can," Harry said. "I found a patch of Roman Chamomile when I was looking for the vegetables. I was going to use it in the stew, but I haven't put in in yet. I can make you some if you like." He climbed back up on his feet and walked over to the wooden bench style camping table where the tin bucket they used for collecting water sat. He reached inside and pulled out a small bundle of yellow centered flowers with small white petals that resembled field daisies. He lifted the lid off of the blue camping coffee pot, dropping the flowers inside of it one by one, pouring water from the bucket into pot.

Hermione looked at Harry in bafflement that stole the words from her mouth, watching his hands close the lid of the coffee pot with a rattled ' _snap'_ of the enamel; his eye rose up and found hers. "I'll be just to heat this up- The enchantments are all placed, I won't be gone long-"

The air between them hung in a pause like a sweater caught in a nail before Harry vanished through the tent flap.

Hermione lowered her legs carefully off of the cot, pulling away the layers of blankets until she was down to Harry's black wool coat. The ground felt frozen under her feet and the air squeezed her skin tightly in a cold chill. She picked up Harry's coat and slid her arms into the sleeves, draping the too big width and length of it around her, standing up from the cot with bracing hands that rattled and creaked the wooden frame. A momentary dizziness enveloped her. She had no idea how long she had been lying down, but it must have been a long time because her head felt heavy and her mind slow and thick like maple syrup. She closed her eyes against this feeling for a moment before pushing forward, wrapping the excess length of Harry's coat around herself like a bathrobe.

She walked through the tent flap that separated the small sleeping area from the 'living area', descending down the small set of steps She spied her wand resting on the camp table next to the empty water bucket. She walked slowly over and picked it up white colored Vinewood. It did not appear to have suffered any damage in their escape from the Snatchers. Her beaded bag sat a few inches further on the table top surface, the folds of cloth smelling of melted snow and mud. She pulled it towards her until she found an empty preserve jar she had taken from the Weasley kitchen before the wedding. She pulled the metal claps off the glass lid and cast a spell into the jar that caused a thin warm flame to erupt from her wand and fill the jar in a flickering ball, illuminating the tent in an orange warm light, adding more light to the single hanging camp light above her head.

Her thumb traced the bottom of the vine and budding leaf overlay that wound its way up the entire tapered length of the wand, drawing out one slow breath before holding the wand in a full grasp and reciting a whispered spell into the open air.

She set the wand on the table top and reached back into her bag, pulling out a pair of her boots that had dark mud clinging to the weather proof leather. But the insides were still warm and dry and she slid her feet gratefully into them. She pulled out one of her coats that like the boots, was speckled with dirt and mud, but still smelled relatively clean and was dry. She shook it out and stood up, glancing over to her wand as she moved to slide out of the black wool coat.

The flap of the tent opened and small snowflakes found their way inside as Harry did. He was holding a chipped blue bowl that smelled like cooked greens and vegetables, and the coffee pot with its small glass percolation dome steaming from heat.

Hermione's hand stilled as she felt him watching her, realizing that she was still wearing his clothes. "I'm sorry, I found a clean one of mine in my bag-" she slid out of the black wool of his coat and pulled her arms through the tan insulation of her own jacket.

"No it's fine," Harry reassured. "You were cold-" he came into the tent and set the two items he was holding on the camp table, setting the bowl at the opposite end of the camp table to keep the smell of cooked vegetables as far away from her as he could. "Here-" he picked up a tin cup from where Hermione stacked them on the bench seat, tipping out a bit of dirt inside it before pouring the steaming pale yellow contents of the coffee pot inside it.

"I never really learned how to do a proper tea, so you might end up feeling _worse_ rather than better," he handed her the tin cup hearing her say a quiet 'thank you' before watching taking a slow, questioning sip. "How bad is it?"

"It's actually _not,"_ Hermione answered, taking another sip, feeling her stomach actually want to keep it down. "It's better than you think it is Harry."

A bit of a smile pulled across Harry's face, like something unsure if it belonged there. "I use to cook all the time- at home. "The word _home_ dropped like a skimming stone plunked into a river. "I sort of had too, or I wouldn't have had much. Plus Dudley never bothered to learn and he was really good at knocking me round to do it."

"What about your Aunt and Uncle?" Hermione realized how ridiculous her question seemed the moment that it left her mouth. She had never outright spent much time with the Dursley's if she could help it. But, from what she had seen, they weren't about to win Foster Parents of the Year.

"They were really good at it too," Harry said, watching Hermione's expression in the white space left by his statement. "They never did much, boxed my ears once or twice, but they left me alone after I threatened them with magic."

"Harry-"

"It's done Hermione," Harry said. "I'd rather not talk about it."

Hermione closed her mouth on the silence, the tin mug warm in her hands. She took another, larger sip than before, her eyes lowering to the clear yellow liquid in the mug as she swallowed. A speck of nausea pushed upwards, wanting to uproot the tea. She kept her mouth closed and her head down until the urge became weaker. "Where are we?" She remembered landing outside with Harry only barely. She glanced around the canvas of the tent, the material bore several marks that weren't there before and a tear in one of its sides that had been patched up with a piece of utility tape. No doubt all of this was from when she had been forced to shove the tent inside the bag. A light wind flapped the material around.

"Horsford Woods," Harry answered over top the light noise of the wind. "Dudley went camping here with Uncle Vernon once—at least that's what I heard."

This time Hermione didn't try to interject, instead holding his gaze. His blue eyes looked faded, like over washed denim, and they were lined in redness from an exhaustion that extended over the rest of him. "How long have we been here?"

"Since last night," Harry said, looking away as he did so. "You weren't waking up and I thought-" He couldn't finish, not wanting to tell her was afraid the potion he had given her, even if she had asked him too, had gone wrong and killed her. "No matter, you're okay now." He glanced down at the bowl of stew on the table that had grown cold. He sat down and drew his legs up under the table.

Hermione reached under the table and undid the small snap lid of an old chocolate tin where they kept their small amount of silverware. She dug a stainless steel spoon out and held it out to him.

"Thanks," Harry took the spoon from her, moving aside the wild carrots and onions floating in the pale brown broth with it, scooping a small bite to his mouth. The vegetables were now soggy and tepid, but he hadn't eaten since the night before and his body relished the food. He took several more bites, looking almost guiltily at Hermione, afraid that he was making her sick. But she didn't say anything. He spied her wand on the table. "Is something wrong with your wand?"

"No," Hermione shook her head. "I thought there might be after the Snatchers found us, but I checked it and it was fine."

"Good," Harry said. "We could use a bit of happy news-" he still felt her watching him. "What?" The hazel in her eyes were cloudy and lined in a thin spider web of red. "Maybe you should go and lie down again," he suggested. Even with her warm jeans, sweater, and coat, she still looked cold and sick.

"I've lain down too much Harry," Hermione responded, her voice sounding weary. "I really want to go wash up, I can't just use perfume all the time-" Her voice went quiet at her stupid mistake. It was what had nearly gotten them found before when Ron was still recovering from being Splinched. She wasn't vain, she just hadn't felt _clean_ in such a long time.

"Snatchers have been scouring places for weeks, Hermione," Harry said to the guilt he knew she was ladling on herself. "They would have been out here either way." He watched her give him only a moment of pause before she swung her legs up over the bench seat and stood up slowly, bracing a hand against the camp table as she did so. "Did you need any help?-" he stopped after realizing what he said. "I didn't mean-"

"I'm fine Harry," Hermione insisted with a smile that pulled at cracked lips, she reached out and slid a hand into his hair, and watched the contact as it was felt by both of them. She picked up her wand and walked around the table to the beginning of the little set of wooden stairs that led up to the flapped off bedroom. She bent down and picked up the empty bucket, pushing aside the tent flap.

She stepped out onto crunching snow into a clouded sunlight, finding herself dwarfed by massive silver fur trees that extended from her sight for miles in every direction. They extended upwards 30 feet into a sky the color of gray wool hung with low clouds. Their branches were naked of leaves, the white colored wood of their long trunks scarred black in some areas where the bark had begun to flake off. Snow drifts clung to the high branches, one of them flurrying away with a soft whoosh as the wind passed over it, falling down in a sticky whiteness onto her hair. She bent down to the ground and scooped up snow with her bare hands, making them sting from the cold. She was only able to gather several handfuls before she reached the brown frozen earth beneath. She raised her head up and saw the movement of water from a river that hadn't been frozen over completely. It wound a thin line through the trees before disappearing into them.

She stepped fully outside the tent, the pail handle cold in her hands. She had no idea how far Harry had cast the enchantments. It was invisible to the naked eye unless it was compromised, the way she had stumbled upon it before was when the Snatcher was trying to break it. She walked with slow steps until she came to where the river was closest, about ten yards or so in front of the tent. There was ice on the water, but it was thin and she could see the current still moving underneath.

She removed her wand from where she had pocketed it, raising it above the water with a whispered: _"Diffendo!"_ A circle of ice cracked exposing the water in the river. She bent low and laid on her side, trying to make her weight distribution on even in case the ice started to crack. She carefully lowered the bucket into the water, her hand and arm going needle like with numbness as she drew up a bucket full, she raised it up high in an arch and set it down beside on the frozen bank of the river. She pushed herself up with her hands, moving backwards onto the snow with her palms.

The ice under her weight split apart with a sudden crack, and because most of her weight was on her hands, she fell forward, her body summersaulting onto the ice. For a moment, she felt the breath knocked out of her before the ice cracked fully and she plunged into the water.

The needle like pain that had gone up her arm now swallowed her whole body. The water was murky, much deeper than it was wide. She kicked upwards, but the water had soaked through her boots and all the layers of clothing, pulling her down like she had stones in her pockets. She had managed to hang on to her wand even when she had fallen. She barely raised it upwards, saying an Ascension spell that shot a mouthful of water into her lungs as she spoke. She shot upwards like a cork.

She broke the river's surface with a choking gasp, half blind for a moment from opening her eyes underwater. She crawled up on the shore fell into a heap on the riverbed and glanced into the woods, head moving furiously back and forth hoping that no one had heard her. She vomited the murky river water she had swallowed.

" _Hermione!"_ Harry was running towards her over the snow bank, his wand grasped in his hand. He reached her and dropped to his knees beside her as she continued to cough up water. "What happened?!"

"The ice broke-" she coughed a rattled after burn from the water that she had just vomited up. "The ice broke when I was trying to get water- I'm fine-" Hermione's voice shook from the cold that was squeezing her whole body. She tried to climb to her feet but found her legs were shaking too much.

Harry reached an arm around her and drew her up. "You're not, you're freezing. Come on you have to get warm, _now_ -"


	3. Chapter 3

**xxxxXxxx**

 _"_ _Who will love you?_

 _Who will fight?"_

~Bon Iver **"** **Skinny Love"**

 **xxxxXxxxx**

* * *

Hermione walked against Harry in a half stumble as he led her back into the tent and up the stairs to the makeshift bedroom. He made her sit down on her cot and removed her boots that were saturated with river water, pulling the woolen socks off her feet, dropping them in a puddle by her shoes. He removed her sopping wet coat in the same manner before she seemed to snap back to herself and made him turn around as she unbuttoned the blue flannel shirt she had on.

He snatched the blanket off his cot and cast a warming spell on it. He turned back around just as Hermione was peeling the last leg off her sodden jeans, wearing nothing but a bra and her underwear.

"Here," He walked over to her and wrapped the blanket across her shoulders, watching her fist the material from her side and close it tight around herself like a cloak.

He stood back up and pulled up at the neck of his gray sweater, drawing it over his head until he was down to a white t-shirt.

He sat down beside her on the cot and opened one end of the blanket, drawing it over himself, pulling her close against him without a protest from her because she was shaking too hard to say anything. "Uncle Vernon taught me survival skills to be Dudley's pack mule once on a camping trip. Guess he was good for one ruddy thing-" He drew one arm across her, rubbing his palm along her bare back with his hand.

"I'm sorry-"Harry felt Hermione's heart beating wildly against his. " I wasn't thinking-"

"You're sick Hermione," Harry defended herself against herself. "Even _you're_ a loud to have a lapse in judgement when that happens-"

"I'm not sick Harry," Hermione met his gaze with eyes half hidden by a sheen of tears. "I-" she hitched on a breath, blinking as one of the tears broke free and wound a path down her face. "-I'm pregnant."

The weight of what she said hit Harry in degrees: shock, then disbelief, then the look on her face.

"I thought I was for weeks, and I cast an antenatal spell on myself today-" she stopped abruptly like a film strip cut in two. "I didn't know how to you-"

Hermione's weight so close to his own made him remember when it had been right after Ron left, and Hermione had cried and sat alone and listless for days, and he had done his best to make her smile, but he felt the ache and betrayal of Ron's departure as much as she did as they lived in a swirl of an empty nothing, trying to go on as shredded things. And he had asked her to dance, and it was silly and stupid. And then she had kissed him with such sad longing he felt her loneliness bleed into his own. And he had kissed her back because it wasn't _nothing_ anymore, and the next morning they had woken up beside each other like they were now.

He set a hand on the pulse point of her wrist "Hermione-"

She pulled away from him and stood up with the blanket wrapped around her, walking away from him in bare feet, rummaging into her beaded bag that Harry had no doubt set on her cot, pulling a clean pair of jeans and a blue sweater, throwing them on with her back towards him in a hurried shakiness, not wanting to feel so naked and exposed. "I don't know how too- I never learned anything other than basic antenatal spells and if I did it wrong I could bleed to death-" She turned back around, her eyes, sad scared. "I'm sorry, it wasn't supposed to happen. I-"

Harry stood up off the cot and walked over to her and as soon as he was within reach, she threw her arms up around him, pressing her face into his shoulder, tears spilling out of her eyes.

Harry felt her breath hitch in warm, jagged puffs against his shirt as he held onto her tightly. "You need to apperate to a hospital," as soon as he said the word: 'hospital' Hermione pulled her head off his shoulder and stared at him. "St. Muggos is too dangerous, but there has to be a Muggle one close enough that can help you-"

"Harry no!" Hermione protested with a shake of her head. "You saw those burnt out caravans, the Death Eaters aren't being selective about where they search, they're searching _all of it-"_

"You can use the invisibility cloak," Harry said. "You can apperate under it to the nearest hospital. I'll wait here as long as I can, if I have to move I want you to meet me in Godric's Hollow-"

"I'm not leaving you by yourself!" Hermione protested. "Godric's Hollow is the _first_ place You Know Who will look because it means something to both of you!"

"You need to be _safe_ Hermione! Harry snapped, his voice rising like a high wind up through the tent. "Even if you _remotely_ thought about keeping it, you can't _do_ that running for your life all the bloody time!"

"I'm not _leaving_!" Hermione yelled so loudly the sound made her ears pop. "I'm not abandoning you like -" She swallowed Ron's name with a choking sound. "I _can't!_ " Her voice rose high again, getting caught up in the top of the tent flaps. "I have thought about keeping it-"

"Hermione-"

"It might even be too late to do anything-"

"No," Harry said forcefully, staring out at her defiant look, freezing in bare feet. "It's too dangerous! If anything should happen to you- _no_!"

"We're in this _together!_ When are you going to remember that?" Her voice not as full bodied in anger as it had been, it instead was wearier, sad, honest. She walked back over to him, placing her hand into his, lacing their fingers together. "You're my best friend, Harry-"

His hand was both warm and cold at the same time, the tips of his fingers still holding a chill from the cold outside. She watched as he glanced down at the flat of her abdomen, brushing his free hand tentatively against it, his touch no lighter than the wings of a moth.

He raised his eyes up to her, laying a hand up against the side of her face, his expression weariness that wished it could be something much more. Wishing that the world could be better for something like this.

She reached both hands up against either side of his face, smiling at him with a sweet sadness that rushed tears down her face. She drew forward and kissed him on the forehead, then against his mouth, tasting the warmth of his breath. She drew her arms up around his neck, feeling him hold her tightly back in return, neither one of them wanting to let go first.

 **xxxxXxxx**

* * *

End.

The issue of abortion is a very touchy subject, yes. But I wanted to depict a more realistic view [at least in my opinion] of Hermione's reasoning. While on the run with Harry in DH, she was 17, and in the midst of a war, the thought of something like that crossing her mind is much more real to me than her simply opting to go on with the pregnancy. I _did_ choose to have her change her mind because she had no way of knowing if she could create the proper spell/potion in the right amount that wouldn't kill her, so she was afraid. Plus there is the loyalty and love she had to Harry, of which that child is a _part_ of. I didn't spell it out, but that was another reasoning.

This story does not tie into others, but I have already written about a baby, a birth, and Harry and Hermione's first time together, I wanted to show the middle of such a possible time.

R/R please.


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